GasGas rider Sunderland initially took the lead of the Saudi Arabian event on Stage 2, and maintained a slim advantage of two minutes, 39 seconds at the head of the table into Saturday’s rest day.
However, the Briton’s hopes of adding a second Dakar victory to his 2017 triumph took a blow on Sunday’s 402km Riyadh-Al Dawadimi test, as navigational problems left him 25m55s behind the day’s winner Jose Ignacio Cornejo.
It means Sunderland has slipped to fourth overall, albeit only 5m38s down on new leader Adrien van Beveren as his previous closest rival, Matthias Walkner, also suffered a difficult day.
Sunderland’s job was made even harder by a crash for his GasGas teammate Daniel Sanders on the liaison section prior to the stage, leaving him with the unenviable task of opening the road.
“It was a bit of a rough day,” said Sunderland. “It started out bad for Sanders with a crash in the liaison and then the stage was really, really difficult with the navigation, so not ideal to start…
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